Blizzard hoped to sell Million Copies of World of Warcraft: Bill Roper

World of Warcraft has become a rage from the time it has been released and in fact in mid-2007, the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) even crossed the nine million mark. However, CVG is reporting that Bill Roper, an ex-employee from Blizzard North, has revealed that Blizzard never expected WoW to become a rage and they had hoped the MMO would sell a million copies.
Bill Roper is now the chief executive officer of Flagship Studios. In an interview with CVG, he explained, “I remember a meeting at Blizzard where we were hoping we’d be able to sell a million copies of the game. You have to remember that the most successful American MMORPG at that time was EverQuest with about 500,000 players. It would have been impossible to predict that World of Warcraft would take off as a cultural phenomenon as it did, but those are the kind of surprises that you like to get in life.”

Roper was nostalgic about his ex-employers. He left Blizzard in 2003 but said that he was proud of the work he did at Blizzard. He also mentioned that he does not have any regrets about starting Flagship and Ping0. World of WarCraft is indeed doing very well and some time ago, Blizzard announced an expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, for the game.